Did Tiger Woods' actions after he drenched his third shot on No. 15 Friday at Augusta result in him signing an incorrect scorecard, which would result in his automatic disqualification from the Masters?

There was no definitive answer and a lot of speculation late Friday. So, while a conclusion has yet to be reached, let's walk through the events in question.

After his round Woods said about his shot into the water on No. 15:

"I went down to the drop area, that wasn't going to be a good spot, because obviously it's into the grain and it was a little bit wet."

So it was muddy and not a good spot to drop. So I went back to where I played it from, but I went two yards farther back and I tried to take two yards off the shot of what I felt I hit."

Two yards farther back.

Woods had just dunked his third shot in the water in front of the green, walked to the edge of the water, walked back to the spot where he hit the shot, and dropped his ball two yards behind the original shot.

He then hit that shot (his fifth) 3 feet from the pin and tapped in for bogey.

So why might he be disqualified?

It has to do with the drop, per USGA rule 26-1:

It is a question of fact whether a ball that has not been found after having been struck toward a water hazard is in the hazard. In the absence of knowledge or virtual certainty that a ball struck toward a water hazard, but not found, is in the hazard, the player must proceed under Rule 27-1.

If a ball is found in a water hazard or if it is known or virtually certain that a ball that has not been found is in the water hazard (whether the ball lies in water or not), the player may under penalty of one stroke:

a. Proceed under the stroke and distance provision of Rule 27-1 by playing a ball as nearly as possible at the spot from which the original ball was last played (see Rule 20-5); or

b. Drop a ball behind the water hazard, keeping the point at which the original ball last crossed the margin of the water hazard directly between the hole and the spot on which the ball is dropped, with no limit to how far behind the water hazard the ball may be dropped; or

Woods apparently didn't choose "a" because two yards (as he said in his post-round interview) isn't "as nearly as possible at the spot from which the original ball was last played." Although I admit "as nearly as possible" is incredibly vague so I suppose this is still an option for what Woods did.

And the second choice "b" is in question as well (there is a "c" but it doesn't apply here).

According to this explanation by the USGA regarding "b," when a player's ball crosses a hazard three times (which Woods' did -- the front of the water, the back of the water, and the roll into the water after the ball careened off the pin) this is how the drop is supposed to play out:

If a ball last crossed the margin of a water hazard as described in the situation above, it appears that the ball crossed the margin of the hazard three times (e.g., first, the initial time it crossed; second, when it crossed over the hazard onto land; and third, when the ball rolled back into the hazard). So when the Rule states that the ball must be dropped keeping the point where the ball last crossed the margin of the water hazard directly between the hole and the spot on which the ball is to be dropped, it is referring to the third (final) time. It is the reference point for the 26-1b option only.

Did Woods keep the point where the ball last crossed the margin of the water hazard "directly between the hole and the spot on which the ball was dropped?" It's hard to tell. It looked on TV like the ball shot off to the left, not between where Woods dropped and the hole.

If Woods played an incorrect ball, according to rule 20-7 he should be penalized 2 strokes and would have, theoretically, incorrectly signed his scorecard -- an automatic disqualification.

Whether Woods did anything wrong has sparked enough chatter about his possible disqualification to make us get very familiar with this portion of the rule book.

Did Tiger Woods’ actions after he drenched his third shot on No. 15 Friday at Augusta result in him signing an incorrect scorecard, which would result in his automatic disqualification from the Masters?

He’s BLACK.. black President, black Attorney general, massive black voter fraud...
SLAP SLAP... try to keep up... he could rape a woman in the gallery and get away with it.. OR A MAN!..

2
posted on 04/12/2013 11:43:51 PM PDT
by hosepipe
(This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole..)

I understand your point, and don't want to get into a ‘this sport vs. that sport’ thing - since they all have problems (not so sure about bowling or Pee-wee golf). However, when I've gone to MLB spring training there still are a lot of normal looking players of average build who don't look like they are juicing. It's a sport in which a skinny guy with good skills and heart can still succeed. When I think of baseball and the ability to be great based on natural ability, hard work, and heart, I think of Ernie Banks.

You may be right, but there have been lots of scrawny guys who could get around on the ball who played during times when steroid use wasn’t common in anything except body building. And, they were also batting against guys who could throw 90+ MPH.

That said you are absolutely correct that the ranks of MLB have had a lot of players in recent years who have clearly been juicing, including many of its biggest stars. Sad.

It sounds like golf rules were written by a guy moonlighting from his day job writing IRS regulations.

That's what I was thinking. Like the IRS regulations, the rules are written so that selctive enfocement is the name of the game otherwise everyone would be guilty of something. Take the slow-play rule for example. Seems to me that the 14 year old Asian kid was singled out for slow play even though many pros violate the same rule during any given tournament. Golf is supposed to be self-enforcing and if a player violates the slow play rule, but signs his scorecard after failing to penalize himself one stroke for each violation, then he is supposed to disqualify himself. Indeed, if the rule was enforced equally against everyone and not just 14 year old Asians, Jack Nicholas would be a mere footnote in golfing history and pro-gold would be more like NASCAR in that the winner might be the only person still left in the race.

During the week my foursome can zip around 18 in 3 hours and change, but on the week end that turns into 5 plus hours and our scores go way up because you can't concentrate that long between shots.

I absolutely hate slow play. I used to play golf quite frequently; sometimes 2 to 3 times a week for a time until lower back and some other health issues put a stop to my enjoyment of the game. Slow play is awful and yes it ruins concentration and the rhythm of the game. I also preferred walking the course and did whenever possible, preferred to play courses that were walking friendly. I found I played much better; my concentration was much better when walking and carrying my clubs and play was quicker, excepting to having to wait for slow groups in front, plus its great exercise.

And I found that courses that mandated carts and especially ones that were cart path only were incredibly slow. There is nothing worse that standing on the tee watching the group in front of you park their carts along the path, each player taking out a single club and walking to their ball that might be on the other side of the fairway, if they could even find it, watching them look endlessly for a lost ball, then watching one of the players decide he or she picked the wrong club, walk back to the cart to get another club (one should always take several clubs with them, but many dont), walk back to their ball, then stand and assess their shot for way too long, watching as the first one to take their shot walks back to the cart and waits for everyone else to finish and walk back to the cart before driving the cart forward, rinse and repeat. Ug!

True story. I used to play golf with my husband and usually with other men, usually being the only woman in the foursome. One day we were playing a municipal course that had a very short but difficult par 3 that caused backups. We were waiting behind the tee, waiting for not one but two groups in front of us (all men BTW) on this hole. Another group came up behind us and one of the men, an older man in the group started making very loud grumblings about the slow play and said something to the effect of These damned women golfers are the reason play is so slow. And he wasnt saying it in a way that would make me think he was joking or ribbing me, he was serious.

When our group finally took our shots, I landed my tee shot on the green about 2 from the pin and after my male playing companions missed the green, landing in a bunker or in the rough and all took bogies+, I putted in for a birdie (I wasnt all that good of a golfer, decent but not with a single digit handicap FWIW but think I was p!ssed off and really wanted to have a good hole). I shouted back to the grumpy old guy and said, Was that quick enough for ya sweetie? If only there had been three more women like me in my group, youd have been taking your tee shots 15 minutes ago.

As my foursome were waiting on the next tee, I could see the par 3 and watched the grumpy old man top his tee shot which dribbled about five feet, then his second which flew over the green into the bunker behind the green. Then I watched him walk back to his cart and slam his clubs into his bag, cursing the whole time. LOL!

When I was in a womans golf league and maintaining a USGA handicap, I played by the rules of golf as best as I could; I used to read and study them, kept a USGA rule book in my golf bag and kept an accurate and legal score card, counting every stroke and taking every penalty every time I played, whether it was league play or not but I still played at a good pace. But when I wasnt playing in a league or maintaining a handicap and playing just for fun and enjoyment, if I was having a really bad round, if I was lagging behind others in my foursome, I would pick up my ball and move forward just to keep up the pace of play. Id estimate the strokes I realistically thought I would have made and added them to my score card if only for my own purposes. And I used to push my husband to play faster as he was notoriously slow.

Woods needs to hire Louie Freeh to conduct an internal investigation as to what went wrong with the shot and who is to blame, after which he can self-impose penalties on himself of no new balls for two years, and donate 20% of his winnings to the wounded and aging caddy foundation. Then he will be good to go.

Woods apparently didn't choose "a" because two yards (as he said in his post-round interview) isn't "as nearly as possible at the spot from which the original ball was last played." Although I admit "as nearly as possible" is incredibly vague so I suppose this is still an option for what Woods did.

If it's an option for what he did then just what the ... are you bloviating about????

Woods entered the tee box at 15 at 5-under and tied for the lead. He played the hole beautifully, laying up his second shot to around 87 yards. He hit a perfect shot onto the green with a 60-degree wedge, a shot that turned out to be a little too perfect. The ball struck the flag pin and bounced back and into the water hazard. The hazard at 15 is a Red Lateral Hazard, which falls under 26-1c of the 2013-1015 USGA Rules and Decisions.

Tiger had several options for continuing play once his ball got wet. He could play the ball from the hazard, replay the shot from the original position incurring a one-point penalty, or he could take straight line from the hole to where the ball last crossed the margin of the hazard and take a drop anywhere behind that point, keeping within that line and incurring a one-point penalty.

In reading the rules it appears that there is a fourth option involving taking a drop on either side of the hazard, taking a drop within two club-lengths of where the ball last crossed the margin of the hazard, but there is some confusion as to whether this would be in play at a Red Lateral, or not.

He confused the rule during the heat of the moment. It is where the ball last crossed the hazard line, not where it first crossed the hazard line. After hitting the pin, the ball entered the hazard on the left front of the green. He could of backup as far as he wanted but, likely would have been in the left hand rough.

"Woods was not disqualified because of a relatively recent rule that allows the rules committee discretion when it comes to violations reported after the fact. Masters officials reviewed the drop on Saturday morning, applying the revision to "Decision 33-7/4.5", which, according to the USGA's website, addresses "the situation where a player is not aware he has breached a Rule because of facts that he did not know and could not reasonably have discovered prior to returning his score card."

I'm not going to comment one or the other, other than to say they probably put this "discretion" rule in place for just this kind of situation....

Augusta National Golf Club's statement from Fred Ridley, chairman of the competition committees, on Tiger Woods this morning:

"Yesterday afternoon, the Rules Committee was made aware of a possible Rules violation that involved a drop by Tiger Woods on the 15th hole.

"In preparation for his fifth shot, the player dropped his ball in close proximity to where he had played his third shot in apparent conformance with Rule 26. After being prompted by a television viewer, the Rules Committee reviewed a video of the shot while he was playing the 18th hole. At that moment and based on that evidence, the Committee determined he had complied with the Rules.

"After he signed his scorecard, and in a television interview subsequent to the round, the player stated that he played further from the point than where he had played his third shot. Such action would constitute playing from the wrong place.

"The subsequent information provided by the player's interview after he had completed play warranted further review and discussion with him this morning. After meeting with the player, it was determined that he had violated Rule 26, and he was assessed a two stroke penalty. The penalty of disqualification was waived by the Committee under Rule 33 as the Committee had previously reviewed the information and made its initial determination prior to the finish of the player's round."

Woods needs to appeal this decision as a violation of his 5th Amendment rights that protect him against double jeopardy and being a witness against himself. Did anyone before that post match interview read him his rights???

Tis statement provides a lot of information that people are ignoring. I originally thought he should be DQ’d but after reading the statement it’s clear they made he right decision and applied the rules properly. Tiger was saved by the “HD Replay” rule.

46
posted on 04/13/2013 8:20:38 AM PDT
by Wyatt's Torch
(I can explain it to you. I can't understand it for you.)

Right. The rules committee told him after he got off 18 that they reviewed his drop and it was legal. He signed his scorecard based on that ruling.

I think the 2 stroke penalty is fair - that is what he would have gotten if they told him at 18 that he had incurred a penalty. He would have then dropped the 2 strokes from his score and signed for the -1.

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